Panel

Call for paper to the pan­el on the top­ic „Cli­mate change, island change, and well­be­ing in small island communities”
Health, Envi­ron­ment, and AnThro­pol­o­gy (HEAT)
Durham
23 – 24 April 2025
co-organ­ised by Durham and Edin­burgh Uni­ver­si­ties and spon­sored by the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Soci­ety (RAI)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Pan­el: “Cli­mate change, island change, and well­be­ing in small island communities”

Sur­round­ed by sea, islands have long been seen as remote and iso­lat­ed by neces­si­ty, though island life in prac­tice involves move­ment both out of and back towards the island (Kohn, 2006; Nic Craith, 2020). With­out enough atten­tion being paid to the needs of island com­mu­ni­ties in deci­sion- and pol­i­cy-mak­ing affect­ing them, islands are also fre­quent­ly asso­ci­at­ed with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (Kot­sira, 2021), among oth­ers rais­ing con­cerns about their sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience (Rat­ter, 2017). If island life is already chal­leng­ing as such, what is the fur­ther impact of cli­mate change and cli­mate-induced dis­as­ters on the men­tal health and well­be­ing of islanders, par­tic­u­lar­ly in small island communities?

This pan­el invites papers dis­cussing ethno­graph­ic exam­ples and pri­ma­ry research cov­er­ing aspects such as:

‑Local under­stand­ings of men­tal health and well­be­ing, and whether/how they are impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis and the ways islanders respond to chang­ing circumstances.
Access to men­tal health ser­vices and ser­vice gaps to be addressed so small island pop­u­la­tions fac­ing the by-prod­ucts of cli­mate change are supported.
‑How pre­con­cep­tions of remote­ness and iso­la­tion, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and resilience are chal­lenged by the cir­cum­stances cre­at­ed by the cli­mate crisis
local­ly, and their impact on men­tal health and wellbeing.
‑The role of cli­mate change in con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tions of the future on/of small islands, feel­ings of uncer­tain­ty, and their impact on islanders’ men­tal health and
wellbeing.
‑How the men­tal health and well­be­ing of researchers are affect­ed while doing research on small islands impact­ed by the cli­mate cri­sis, includ­ing cop­ing mech­a­nisms and
research strategies.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION GUIDANCE

The dead­line for sub­mis­sions is 13 Jan­u­ary 2025.

Please sub­mit your paper abstract through the con­fer­ence por­tal here: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/abstract/info

Once you access the portal:

Choose from the drop-down menu the event you wish to attend: Health, Envi­ron­ment, and AnThro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) 2025.
Fill in your per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al details.
Pro­vide the title of the paper you wish to present.
Select talk from the list of pre­sen­ta­tion options.
Upload your paper abstract. Your abstract must me no more than 250 words, and attached as a .doc or .pdf file (max­i­mum upload size 10 MB).
Select from the drop-down menu the title of the pan­el you wish to join: Cli­mate change, island change, and well­be­ing in small island communities.

You do not have to be an RAI or ASA mem­ber to pro­pose a paper, but please note that only papers sub­mit­ted via con­fer­ence por­tal will be considered.
More infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence can be found on the web­site: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/health-environment-and-anthropology-heat-2024

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Pan­el on “Influ­ence of Chang­ing Ecolo­gies on Health and Human Adap­ta­tion at Local, Nation­al and Glob­al level”
HEAT 2025
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty (UK)
April 23–24, 2025
Dead­line 13 Jan­u­ary 2025

Pan­el Abstract:
In Anthro­pol­o­gy, research on inter­ac­tions and the com­plex net­work of humans, health and envi­ron­ment start­ed ear­ly with the cul­tur­al ecol­o­gy the­o­ry and med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy in the 1930s and 1960s respec­tive­ly. The focus theme of these approach­es had been adap­ta­tion includ­ing fac­tors of genet­ics, phys­i­ol­o­gy, cul­ture and the approach­es assumed that health is deter­mined by envi­ron­men­tal adap­ta­tion and that dis­eases arise from envi­ron­men­tal imbal­ances. Fur­ther stud­ies are required to under­stand the con­sump­tion pat­terns which are asso­ci­at­ed with health risks affect­ing human biol­o­gy, ecol­o­gy and the epi­demi­ol­o­gy of emerg­ing and reemerg­ing dis­eases. As researchers, the press­ing ques­tion is the present sce­nario of region­al, nation­al and glob­al affairs such as cli­mate change, food inse­cu­ri­ty, envi­ron­men­tal health, demo­graph­ic shifts, etc. Though there are ongo­ing con­sis­tent efforts to iden­ti­fy strate­gies and bring out solu­tions, yet, it requires exten­sive stud­ies on eco­log­i­cal changes and the asso­ci­at­ed health dis­par­i­ties. With this back­drop, the pan­el invites papers/studies con­duct­ed with­in (but not lim­it­ed to) South Asia to explore the cross-cul­tur­al impact of eco­log­i­cal changes on pop­u­la­tions. It seeks to high­light health dis­par­i­ties aris­ing from these changes and have an in-depth dis­cus­sion on region­al-spe­cif­ic health impli­ca­tions, as well as include trends in research method­ol­o­gy. The pan­el, in con­clu­sion, will be address­ing the ‘Ecol­o­gy-Human Adap­ta­tion Imbal­ance’ and will try to iden­ti­fy the loop­holes and bring out prob­a­ble alter­na­tives for region-spe­cif­ic populations.

The pan­el will explore the extent to which chang­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions bring about adverse health con­se­quences and adap­tive imbal­ance under var­i­ous eco­log­i­cal con­di­tions. The pan­el invites papers on the theme of ‘Ecol­o­gy-Human Adap­ta­tion Imbal­ance’ in the con­text of the fol­low­ing areas-

Tra­di­tion­al and mar­gin­alised communities.

Urban ecology.

Food environment.

Demog­ra­phy and access to Pub­lic Health. 

Age­ing and Envi­ron­ment Interaction

Adap­ta­tion to eco­log­i­cal vulnerabilities.

You can sub­mit your abstracts in the Abstract Man­age­ment Por­tal on or before 13 Jan­u­ary 2025. The abstract should not be more than 250 words and the above link pro­vides fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the process of abstract sub­mis­sion. All papers must be sub­mit­ted via the sub­mis­sion point on the con­fer­ence web­site (below). This should be uploaded in .doc or .pdf for­mat. Pro­pos­als must con­sist of:

Title of the pan­el you wish join;

The title of the paper you wish to present;

An abstract of no more than 250 words.

Paper pro­pos­als will be reviewed by pan­el convenor(s) and a deci­sion on whether the paper has been accept­ed or reject­ed will come from them.

Only papers sub­mit­ted via the link below will be con­sid­ered by pan­el convenors.

Web­site Link- Event Durham – Abstract Management 

Rules

You do not have to be an RAI or ASA mem­ber to pro­pose a paper.

You may only present once at the con­fer­ence. Pan­el chairs and dis­cus­sants may also present a paper on a dif­fer­ent panel.

All those attend­ing the con­fer­ence, includ­ing dis­cus­sants and chairs, will need to reg­is­ter and pay to attend.

For any query, kind­ly con­tact: karvileena@gauhati.ac.in

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CFP below for a pan­el on „Inti­mate medi­a­tion: hor­mones and endocrine dis­rup­tion across species, place, and time”
2025 Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) Conference
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty, UK
April 23–24, 2025
Co-organ­ised by Durham and Edin­burgh uni­ver­si­ties and spon­sored by the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Soci­ety (RAI)

The call is sched­uled to close on 13 Jan­u­ary, although we will keep this under review and extend if it seems necessary. 

Abstracts can be sub­mit­ted via the Abstract Man­age­ment por­tal. The web­site includes guid­ance and a list of pan­els a pro­pos­er can select from. 

Pan­el #21: „Inti­mate medi­a­tion: hor­mones and endocrine dis­rup­tion across species, place, and time”

Key­words: hor­mones, chem­i­cals, endocrine dis­rup­tion, EDCs, plas­tics, pre­scrip­tion drugs, side effects, alter­life, green chemistry

This pan­el invites con­sid­er­a­tion of endocrine dis­rupt­ing chem­i­cals (EDCs) as a key link between health and envi­ron­ment. EDCs are syn­thet­ic chem­i­cals that inter­act with the hor­mon­al mes­sag­ing process­es of humans and oth­er ani­mals, com­mon­ly found in every­day items, notably many plas­tics. These ubiq­ui­tous sub­stances tran­scend local envi­ron­ments through weath­er pat­terns and indus­tri­al chains, defy con­sumer ratio­nales of per­son­al pro­tec­tion through „organ­ic” or „green” choic­es, and have effects that are unpre­dictable and may remain latent for gen­er­a­tions. EDCs are now con­sti­tu­tive of our bod­ies, com­pli­cat­ing any ideas about an un-altered „pure” state, and have been linked to health issues as dis­parate as dia­betes, endometrio­sis, asth­ma, ear­ly puber­ty, obe­si­ty, and gen­der dys­pho­ria. There is good rea­son to con­sid­er hor­mon­al­ly-active phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as EDCs, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en how they can exceed the consumer’s bod­i­ly sys­tem and enter into water­ways and oth­er shared envi­ron­ments. EDCs trou­ble stan­dard polit­i­cal posi­tions around indi­vid­ual auton­o­my and choice, com­pli­cat­ing con­ser­v­a­tive impuls­es towards pro­tec­tion­ism and immu­ni­ty. Study­ing „the expo­some” trou­bles stan­dard ways of mak­ing knowl­edge about chem­i­cals: chem­i­cal effects come into being in inter­ac­tion with one anoth­er instead of as iso­lat­ed vari­ables, and tim­ing of expo­sure often mat­ters more than dosage (counter to the tox­i­co­log­i­cal max­im ‚the dose makes the poi­son’). Add to this the lob­by­ing pres­sure from petro­le­um and chem­i­cal indus­tries, and it is clear why it can be pro­found­ly dif­fi­cult to acknowl­edge and take action about EDCs. Yet, some med­ical research cen­ters, activist groups, artists, and even indus­tri­al ini­tia­tives around „green chem­istry” are doing so. This nexus begs fur­ther anthro­po­log­i­cal inquiry. 

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Call for abstracts to a pan­el on „Scal­ing tox­ic expo­sure; inter­gen­er­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty, care and plan­e­tary health”
Health, Envi­ron­ment, and Anthro­pol­o­gy (HEAT) Conference
Durham Uni­ver­si­ty (UK)
April 23–24, 2025

The call is sched­uled to close on 13 January

If you are inter­est­ed, please sub­mit an abstract via the Abstract Man­age­ment por­tal. The web­site includes guid­ance on how papers should be sub­mit­ted and a drop down list of pan­els a pro­pos­er can select from. 

Details: Scal­ing tox­ic expo­sure; inter­gen­er­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty, care and plan­e­tary health 

Chem­i­cal expo­sure and their poten­tial tox­ic arrange­ments are inter­gen­er­a­tional, cross­ing lines of kin­ship and con­nect­ing rela­tions to mol­e­cules, mul­ti­ple bod­ies, ecolo­gies and social spaces through non-lin­ear tem­po­ral­i­ties. This presents sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for ethno­graph­ic research con­fronting scales of expo­sure in the con­text of plan­e­tary health, esca­lat­ing cli­mate and eco­log­i­cal crises, pro­found inequal­i­ty, and ongo­ing colo­nial for­ma­tions. In mil­i­tary cam­paigns dev­as­tat­ing lives, geno­cide brings eco­cide. There is a need to exam­ine the nov­el con­fig­u­ra­tions of inter­gen­er­a­tional respon­si­bil­i­ty, jus­tice and care which arise at these junc­tures, as they index pos­si­bil­i­ties for oth­er ways of life. This requires cre­ative ori­en­ta­tions to method, con­cepts and the­o­ry to address the com­plex tem­po­ral and spa­tial scales of tox­ic exposure. 

Our pan­el seeks con­tri­bu­tions from those engag­ing with chem­i­cal expo­sures and ques­tions of inter­gen­er­a­tional time and social rela­tions with­in anthro­pol­o­gy and/or in dia­logue with oth­er dis­ci­plines and those address­ing the method­olog­i­cal chal­lenges and con­cep­tu­al approach­es relat­ed to these themes. 

Our pan­el is guid­ed but not lim­it­ed to the fol­low­ing questions: 

-How can inter­gen­er­a­tional chem­i­cal expo­sure be exam­ined giv­en that tem­po­ral­i­ty of tox­i­c­i­ty is not linear?
‑What are the pos­si­bil­i­ties for action – for our­selves as researchers, for our research com­mu­ni­ties, and for wider groups entan­gled in these land­scapes – if con­ven­tion­al mech­a­nisms of causal­i­ty do not apply?
‑If the mate­ri­al­i­ty and laten­cy of chem­i­cal expo­sure artic­u­lates an absence in the present how can we exam­ine the per­va­sive and elu­sive­ness of toxicity?
‑What kinds of ethno­graph­ic (re)orientations are required to crit­i­cal­ly ori­ent to the mul­ti­ple tem­po­ral­i­ties of chem­i­cal tox­i­c­i­ty? What can the work of com­par­i­son facil­i­tate in exam­in­ing scales of tox­ic exposure?

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Call for Pan­els: RAI FILM Online Con­fer­ence 2025: „Where Are We Now? Visu­al and Mul­ti­modal Anthropology”
28 April – 2 May 2025 (Online only)

RAI FILM and the Film Com­mit­tee of the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Insti­tute invites pan­el, round­table, and work­shop pro­pos­als on any facet of visu­al, mul­ti­sen­so­ry and mul­ti­modal Anthro­pol­o­gy. We want to redou­ble our efforts to achieve a bet­ter and more sus­tain­able future for all by learn­ing more about how anthro­pol­o­gists are using these meth­ods to respond to glob­al chal­lenges of our times. We encour­age pre­sen­ta­tions that explore emer­gent method­olo­gies and inter­ac­tive approach­es. We offer an inclu­sive forum to explore cre­ative and inno­v­a­tive approach­es, dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tive and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry meth­ods and tack­le prac­ti­cal problems.
Pos­si­ble areas of con­tem­po­rary inter­est might be dia­logues between emer­gent and exist­ing forms of film mak­ing; AI and chang­ing tech­nolo­gies (extend­ed real­i­ty (XR); sto­ry­telling and nar­ra­tive, indige­nous film­mak­ing; ani­ma­tion, and aesthetics.
In addi­tion to this open call, we are also look­ing to high­light the glob­al chal­lenges for visu­al and mul­ti­modal anthro­pol­o­gy. We ask how visu­al and mul­ti­modal meth­ods can help to address the glob­al chal­lenges of our times. We want to learn how anthro­pol­o­gists are using visu­al and mul­ti­modal tools to respond to issues such as inequal­i­ty, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, pover­ty, cli­mate change, war, and jus­tice. We wel­come engage­ment with top­ics such as food and hunger, water, migra­tion, forced dis­place­ment, extrem­ism and intol­er­ance, social inequal­i­ties, men­tal health, dis­abil­i­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion and geno­cide, peace and jus­tice, cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, renew­ables and just economies.
This vir­tu­al con­fer­ence sits along­side the RAI FILM Fes­ti­val which is a bien­ni­al inter­na­tion­al event cel­e­brat­ing the best in doc­u­men­tary film­mak­ing from around the globe and estab­lished in 1985 by the Roy­al Anthro­po­log­i­cal Insti­tute (UK). The fes­ti­val show­cas­es new work from aca­d­e­m­ic anthro­pol­o­gists and relat­ed dis­ci­plines, and from film­mak­ers at all lev­els of expe­ri­ence from stu­dents to pro­fes­sion­als. It looks for fear­less films that ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions, build bridges, seek redress and pro­mote social jus­tice and dialogue.

To see our two most recent edi­tions see: https://festival.raifilm.org.uk/

RAI FILM Fes­ti­val 2025 will cel­e­brate our 40th anniver­sary both in per­son and online:  https://raifilm.org.uk/rai-film-festival-2025/

In per­son film fes­ti­val – 27–30 March 2025 at Water­shed & Arnolfi­ni, Bris­tol UK
Screen­ings, gala events, work­shops and talks
Fes­ti­val films avail­able online through­out April 2025
Stream­ing 80 films avail­able 24/7 worldwide
RAI FILM Con­fer­ence – 28 April‑2 May 2025
Keynotes, pan­els, round­table, work­shops and paper presentations

Join us to explore the crit­i­cal role of visu­al and mul­ti­modal anthro­pol­o­gy in address­ing con­tem­po­rary glob­al issues. Sub­mit your pro­pos­als and con­tribute to a dynam­ic and inclu­sive forum for inno­v­a­tive and cre­ative schol­ar­ly exchange.

Pan­el Sub­mis­sion Guidelines:

1. Pan­el, Round­table, and Work­shop Proposals:

• Title: Con­cise and descriptive.
• Short Abstract: a (very) short abstract of less than 300 characters,
• Long Abstract: a long abstract of 250 words

2. Impor­tant Dates:

• Call for Pan­els Clos­es: 1 Octo­ber 2024
• Call for Papers Opens: 1 Novem­ber 2024
• Call for Papers Clos­es: 17 Jan­u­ary 2025
• Reg­is­tra­tion Opens: 24 Feb­ru­ary 2025

To Sub­mit: All pro­pos­als must be made via an online form https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/raiff2025/panel-form

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CfP for the pan­el “Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”
STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2025 “Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies“
May 5 to 7, 2025 and on Zoom

Con­venors:
Erik Aar­den (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)

The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025

Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies (STS) and relat­ed fields, such as Med­ical Soci­ol­o­gy, Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Health Pol­i­cy Analy­sis, and Bioethics, have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of “test­ing in bio­med­i­cine.” Much of this work has focused on spe­cif­ic types of tests or their uses in dis­tinct set­tings. For instance, begin­ning in the late 1980s, schol­ars have stud­ied genet­ic test­ing as it was envi­sioned, devel­oped, and used in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, or recre­ation­al prac­tices, or com­pared the moral­i­ties of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works sus­tain­ing and lim­it­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to a soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing in clin­i­cal prac­tices is involved in “mak­ing up peo­ple” (Hack­ing, 2002). More recent­ly, research has addressed the devel­op­ment, use, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies of test­ing and the author­i­ties involved in their gov­er­nance. Last but not least, emerg­ing bod­ies of schol­ar­ship have explored the role of test­ing as a gov­ern­ing tool in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and pan­dem­ic man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in response to COVID-19.

In this pan­el, we aim to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open up a con­ver­sa­tion between these dif­fer­ent areas of research. Build­ing on work per­formed under the label of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we pro­pose the label of “social stud­ies of (bio­med­ical) test­ing” or “bio­med­ical test­ing stud­ies” to encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engagements.

We invite both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the envi­sion­ing, devel­op­ment, use, eval­u­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing across diverse bio­med­ical domains. These may include but are not lim­it­ed to: test­ing prac­tices in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health or social ser­vice set­tings; DIY-test­ing; and eco­nom­ic, legal, moral, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of test­ing as well as the absences or non-use of tests.

Con­fer­ence Page: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://www.conftool.com/sts-conference-graz-2025/
Call Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:5f98cc92-aa88-4cd7-a930-ceff51ffc631
List of Pan­els: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/

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CfP to the pan­el “Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing”
23rd Annu­al STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2025: “Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies.“
May 5 to 7, 2025
Graz (Aus­tria), online hybrid

The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025.

„Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”

Short Abstract:

This pan­el seeks to engage schol­ars in a con­ver­sa­tion on test­ing in bio­med­i­cine. We wel­come con­tri­bu­tions that explore the devel­op­ment, uses, reg­u­la­tion, and gov­er­nance of var­i­ous bio­med­ical tests across clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, and recre­ation­al contexts.

Con­fer­ence Page: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://www.conftool.com/sts-conference-graz-2025/
Call Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:5f98cc92-aa88-4cd7-a930-ceff51ffc631
List of Pan­els: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/

Con­venors:

Erik Aar­den (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)

Long Abstract:

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies (STS) and relat­ed fields, such as Med­ical Soci­ol­o­gy, Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Health Pol­i­cy Analy­sis, and Bioethics, have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of “test­ing in bio­med­i­cine.” Much of this work has focused on spe­cif­ic types of tests or their uses in dis­tinct set­tings. For instance, begin­ning in the late 1980s, schol­ars have stud­ied genet­ic test­ing as it was envi­sioned, devel­oped, and used in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, or recre­ation­al prac­tices, or com­pared the moral­i­ties of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works sus­tain­ing and lim­it­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to a soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing in clin­i­cal prac­tices is involved in “mak­ing up peo­ple” (Hack­ing, 2002). More recent­ly, research has addressed the devel­op­ment, use, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies of test­ing and the author­i­ties involved in their gov­er­nance. Last but not least, emerg­ing bod­ies of schol­ar­ship have explored the role of test­ing as a gov­ern­ing tool in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and pan­dem­ic man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in response to COVID-19.

In this pan­el, we aim to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open up a con­ver­sa­tion between these dif­fer­ent areas of research. Build­ing on work per­formed under the label of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we pro­pose the label of “social stud­ies of (bio­med­ical) test­ing” or “bio­med­ical test­ing stud­ies” to encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engagements.

We invite both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the envi­sion­ing, devel­op­ment, use, eval­u­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing across diverse bio­med­ical domains. These may include but are not lim­it­ed to: test­ing prac­tices in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health or social ser­vice set­tings; DIY-test­ing; and eco­nom­ic, legal, moral, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of test­ing as well as the absences or non-use of tests.

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CfP for a Pan­el on “Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”
23rd Annu­al STS Con­fer­ence Graz 2025, “Crit­i­cal Issues in Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Soci­ety Studies“
May 5 to 7, 2025. The call for abstracts is open until Jan­u­ary 20, 2025

Con­venors:

Erik Aar­den (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Mara Köh­ler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)
Vic­to­ria Mek­lin (Uni­ver­si­ty of Klagenfurt)
Ingrid Met­zler (Karl Land­stein­er Uni­ver­si­ty of Health Sciences)

“Towards Social Stud­ies of (Bio­med­ical) Testing?”

Over the past three decades, schol­ars in Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies (STS) and relat­ed fields, such as Med­ical Soci­ol­o­gy, Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy, Health Pol­i­cy Analy­sis, and Bioethics, have engaged with the phe­nom­e­non of “test­ing in bio­med­i­cine.” Much of this work has focused on spe­cif­ic types of tests or their uses in dis­tinct set­tings. For instance, begin­ning in the late 1980s, schol­ars have stud­ied genet­ic test­ing as it was envi­sioned, devel­oped, and used in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health, or recre­ation­al prac­tices, or com­pared the moral­i­ties of the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works sus­tain­ing and lim­it­ing its uses. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, schol­ars con­tribut­ing to a soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis have inves­ti­gat­ed how test­ing in clin­i­cal prac­tices is involved in “mak­ing up peo­ple” (Hack­ing, 2002). More recent­ly, research has addressed the devel­op­ment, use, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing in emerg­ing fields such as trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the polit­i­cal economies of test­ing and the author­i­ties involved in their gov­er­nance. Last but not least, emerg­ing bod­ies of schol­ar­ship have explored the role of test­ing as a gov­ern­ing tool in glob­al health ini­tia­tives and pan­dem­ic man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in response to COVID-19.

In this pan­el, we aim to use test­ing as a bound­ary object to open up a con­ver­sa­tion between these dif­fer­ent areas of research. Build­ing on work per­formed under the label of the “anthro­pol­o­gy of med­ical test­ing” (Street and Kel­ly, 2021) and the “soci­ol­o­gy of diag­no­sis and screen­ing” (Petersen and Pien­aar, 2021), we pro­pose the label of “social stud­ies of (bio­med­ical) test­ing” or “bio­med­ical test­ing stud­ies” to encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary engagements.

We invite both empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the envi­sion­ing, devel­op­ment, use, eval­u­a­tion, and reg­u­la­tions of test­ing across diverse bio­med­ical domains. These may include, but are not lim­it­ed to: test­ing prac­tices in clin­i­cal, pub­lic health or social ser­vice set­tings; DIY-test­ing; and eco­nom­ic, legal, moral, and polit­i­cal dimen­sions of test­ing as well as the absences or non-use of tests.

For more infor­ma­tion and to apply visit:

Con­fer­ence Page: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/
Abstract Sub­mis­sion: https://www.conftool.com/sts-conference-graz-2025/
Call Link: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:5f98cc92-aa88-4cd7-a930-ceff51ffc631

List of Pan­els: https://stsconf.tugraz.at/calls/call-for-abstracts/

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CfP pan­el „At the bor­ders of bio­med­i­cine: how health and care are recon­fig­ured as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise”
10th STS Italia Con­fer­ence “Techno­science for Good: Design­ing, Car­ing, and Reconfiguring”
Politec­ni­co di Milano, Milan, Italy
11–13 June 2025

Fol­low this link: https://stsitalia.org/submission-2025/ and sub­mit a title, an abstract of up to 500 words, and key­words by 3 Feb­ru­ary 2025 (this dead­line will NOT be extended). 

At the bor­ders of bio­med­i­cine: how health and care are recon­fig­ured as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise

In con­tem­po­rary soci­eties, neolib­er­al eco­nom­ic arrange­ments and the rise of con­sumerism have sig­nif­i­cant­ly reshaped cul­tur­al expec­ta­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the body, fram­ing health as a high­ly indi­vid­u­al­ized and moral­ly charged respon­si­bil­i­ty. Indi­vid­u­als are expect­ed to seek knowl­edge, exer­cise moral judg­ment, par­tic­i­pate in health­care deci­sions, and min­i­mize health risks through per­son­al choic­es. This empha­sis on per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty is reflect­ed not only in pub­lic health dis­cours­es but also in knowl­edge domains that sit at the epis­temic bound­aries of bio­med­i­cine. Con­se­quent­ly, it is impor­tant to explore how these new pub­lic health dis­cours­es have cre­at­ed space for alter­na­tive practices—such as med­i­ta­tion, nutri­tion­al ther­a­pies, dance ther­a­py, and heal­ing meth­ods drawn from natur­opa­thy and homeopathy—to enter the health­care are­na. These prac­tices are sup­port­ed by an increased empha­sis on indi­vid­ual choice, ther­a­peu­tic plu­ral­ism, and asso­ci­at­ed fund­ing packages. 

Approach­es that encom­pass health and well­ness prac­tices that lie out­side and are not accept­ed with­in bio­med­i­cine, oth­er­wise labeled as “refused knowl­edge”, do not sim­ply reflect an alleged oppo­si­tion to bio­med­ical advice stem­ming from health illit­er­a­cy or dis­trust of med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. Instead, they sig­ni­fy a demand from cit­i­zens, con­sumers, and patient advo­ca­cy groups to become more informed and account­able in their rela­tion­ship with bio­med­i­cine. This trend involves “open­ing the black box” of bio­med­i­cine, crit­i­cal­ly assess­ing its inner work­ings. Fur­ther research is need­ed to explore how alter­na­tive knowl­edge sys­tems chal­lenge bio­med­ical bound­aries and con­tribute to shap­ing con­tem­po­rary under­stand­ings of health and care. 

This pan­el aims to bring togeth­er mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary STS research to deep­en our under­stand­ing of the social and epis­temic con­di­tions under which health and care are dis­cur­sive­ly and mate­ri­al­ly enact­ed as “do-able prob­lems” at the mar­gins of bio­med­ical sci­ence. It seeks to ana­lyze the extent to which such enact­ment may reduce indi­vid­u­als’ reliance on pre­vail­ing med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers by pro­mot­ing activ­i­ties such as self-care, health enhance­ment, chron­ic dis­ease man­age­ment, and the acqui­si­tion of diag­nos­tic and ther­a­peu­tic skills, there­by increas­ing­ly shift­ing med­ical exper­tise and respon­si­bil­i­ty to the individual.

We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers to sub­mit the­o­ret­i­cal, empir­i­cal, and/or method­olog­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions that explore how forms of health and care emerg­ing at the bound­aries of sci­ence reshape bio­med­ical author­i­ty while becom­ing entan­gled in con­tem­po­rary pol­i­tics of life. 

We espe­cial­ly encour­age a focus on the inter­sec­tion of knowl­edge-mak­ing prac­tices and indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion process­es, and how these process­es are enact­ed in rela­tion to bod­i­ly expe­ri­ences, health, and care man­age­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to the empha­sis on per­son­al and moral respon­si­bil­i­ty for health. 

Con­trib­u­tors may focus on the fol­low­ing dimensions: 

• Ana­lyze how health and care are prac­ticed at the bound­aries of bio­med­ical sciences. 

• Exam­ine clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tems, tech­ni­cal objects, ther­a­peu­tic prac­tices, care rela­tion­ships, self-exper­i­men­tal tech­niques, evi­dence pro­duc­tion, and pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies that either rein­force or chal­lenge the nar­ra­tives and nor­ma­tive stances fram­ing health as an indi­vid­u­al­ized moral respon­si­bil­i­ty and per­son­al duty. 

• Explore knowl­edge legit­imiza­tion strate­gies employed to frame health and care as do-able prob­lems beyond bio­med­ical expertise. 

• Pro­vide method­olog­i­cal reflec­tions on the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a non-nor­ma­tive, sym­met­ri­cal per­spec­tive when study­ing health and care prac­tices beyond the bio­med­ical, while also con­sid­er­ing the researcher’s posi­tion­al­i­ty in the field.

If you have any ques­tions please email to stefano.crabu@unipd.it.

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CFP for a pan­el on „Car­ing for ‚care’: fem­i­nist STS per­spec­tives on research­ing robots and AI”
Chair: Dr. Ste­vi­en­na de Saille, Lec­tur­er in Sociology
10th STS Italia Con­fer­ence, tak­ing place in Milan
11 to 13 June

Dead­line for abstracts is 3 Feb 2025

You can find more infor­ma­tion here: https://stsitalia.org/conference-2025

Car­ing for “care”: fem­i­nist STS per­spec­tives on research­ing robots and
AI

In some lan­guages, such as Ital­ian, there is a dis­tinc­tion between
car­ing for/caring about (cura) and pro­vid­ing health or social care
(assis­ten­za). In oth­er lan­guages, par­tic­u­lar­ly Eng­lish, “care” can
become a catch-all encom­pas­ing the emo­tive, the trans­ac­tion­al and the
sys­temic. This semi­otic  slip­page, par­tic­u­lar­ly in dis­cus­sions about
emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies such as robots and AI, means that things which
can­not actu­al­ly care are increas­ing­ly tout­ed as the
solu­tion for “the cri­sis of care” for dis­abled and old­er peo­ple, ie.
those who advanced cap­i­tal­ist soci­eties tend to care the least about.

Begin­ning with the work of Tron­to and Bel­la­casa, this tra­di­tion­al open
pan­el asks how “care” becomes con­struct­ed, decon­struct­ed, entangled,
detan­gled, impli­cat­ed and alien­at­ed in these dis­cus­sions in different
lan­guages and dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al con­texts. It asks how those of us
doing empir­i­cal research on the use of robots and AI in care can
devel­op schol­ar­ship that uses fem­i­nist STS sen­si­bil­i­ties, paradigms
and prac­tices to inform our par­tic­i­pa­tion. How can the con­flu­ence of
the robot­ic, the human and the social be stud­ied with care, when
nei­ther the prob­lems, con­text, pur­pose nor users are well defined and
the lan­guage of “care” is not uni­ver­sal?  What oth­er forms of
knowl­edge pro­duc­tion could we uti­lize as an anti­dote to instrumental
engi­neer­ing imag­i­nar­ies, par­tic­u­lar­ly where these claim to be solving
the “prob­lem” of car­ing for soci­etal­ly vul­ner­a­ble groups? How do we as
STS schol­ars work against tech­noso­lu­tion­ism, and avoid being co-opted
into instru­men­tal imag­i­nar­ies when work­ing on interdisciplinary
projects? In oth­er words, how do we care for “care”?

This pan­el invites papers which dis­cuss these and sim­i­lar questions
about mobi­liz­ing STS sen­si­bil­i­ties to help trans­form and make visible
the care in care robot­ics, in ways which can shape
and influ­ence the tra­jec­to­ry of engi­neer­ing projects. We are
espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in qual­i­ta­tive empir­i­cal research that examines
the posi­tion­al­i­ty and reflex­iv­i­ty of STS schol­ars with regard to the
study of “robots/AI for care”, as well as those exam­in­ing the new and
exper­i­men­tal forms of nor­ma­tiv­i­ty and rela­tion­al­i­ty which are
begin­ning to arise around robots, AI and human engage­ment in this
field. Con­tri­bu­tions may include (but are not lim­it­ed to) those which
dis­cuss “care” as:

• an onto­log­i­cal object, an ontol­ogy, an object conflict;
• an epis­to­mol­o­gy;
• a verb, an action;
• an ethics, a pol­i­tics, a moral imper­a­tive, a nor­ma­tive orientation;
• a set of rela­tions, a system;
• a metaphor;
• a syn­onym for main­te­nance, respon­si­bil­i­ty, nurturance…
• or any oth­er way of approach­ing robots and AI in care as a top­ic for
  (fem­i­nist) STS.

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